God of the Oppressed

by James H. Cone

I insisted that there is no universality that is not particular, no knowledge of God's revelation in the U.S. that did not arise out of the black struggle against white supremacy.

I acknowledged the need to pay careful attention to the African in black religion but not to the extent that the God of Jesus would be rendered marginal in black theological discourse.

The Bible therefore is one witness to God's empowering presence in human affairs, along with other important testimonies. The other testimonies include sacred documents of the African-American experience—such as the speeches of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, the music of the blues, jazz, and rap. Liberating stories, myths, and legends are also found among men and women of all races and cultures struggling to realize the divine intention for their lives. I believe that the Bible is a liberating word for many people but not the only word of liberation. God speaks not just one Word in only one Story but many liberating words in any sacred stories.

The black religious experience in the U.S. has a questioning tradition that goes back to slavery. Black slaves rejected biblical traditions which whites used to justify slavery—such as the so-called curse of Ham (Gen. 9:24-27), the story of Cain (Gen. 4:1-16), and the sayings that admonished slaves to be obedient to their earthly masters (Eph. 6:5-8, Col. 3:22-25, I Pet. 18-25, I Tim. 6:1-2, Titus 2:9-10, and Philem).

Human beings are made for each other and no people can realize their full humanity except as they participate in its realization for others.

I turn to the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul and of the Spirituals and Gospel Music, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Martin Luther King, Jr. This Jesus of the biblical and black traditions is not a theological concept but a liberating presence in the lives of the poor in their fight for dignity and worth. This is the Jesus I wrote about in God of the Oppressed.

No longer can I do theology as if Jesus is God's sole revelation. Rather he is an important revelatory event among many. God speaks to people through many persons and events in a variety of ways. While I find it meaningful to speak of Jesus as God's Black Christ who empowers African Americans in their fight against white supremacy, I cannot limit God's revelation to Jesus or to the fight against white racism. God's reality is much bigger than the black experience and the concepts black theologians create from it. No one people's language and experience are capable of capturing the full reality and presence of God.

The great problem with dominant white theologians, especially white men, is their tendency to speak as if they and they alone can set the rules for thinking about God. That is why they seldom turn to the cultures of the poor, especially people of color, for resources to discourse about God. But I contend that the God of Jesus is primarily found where dominant theologians do not look. On this point, Paul was absolutely right: "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are"

I agree with feminists and womanists who reject the theories of the atonement—ransom, satisfaction, moral influence, substitution, penal, etc.—as reflecting the God of patriarchy, the values of the dominant group.

Both black and white churches are guilty of promoting passive suffering in the African American community. Black church faith focuses on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. All aspects of Jesus' identity are important elements in its understanding of redemption. But the suffering and death of Jesus receive special emphasis in the songs, sermons, and prayers of black Christians. This emphasis often leads to the passive acceptance of suffering, which male preachers have exploited to the detriment of women. White preachers and theologians have been particularly adept in teaching blacks to be passive and nonviolent—modeled after their narrow interpretations of Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Black liberation theology was created by black theologians and preachers who rejected this white teaching about the meek, long-suffering Jesus. We called it hypocritical and racist. Our christology focused on the revolutionary Black Christ who "preached good news to the poor," "proclaimed release to the captives," and "let the oppressed go free" (Luke 4:18f).

Since whites have been the most violent race on the planet, their theologians and preachers are not in a position to tell black people, or any other people for that matter, what they must do to be like Jesus.

No amount of white theological and biblical reflections on Jesus' cross and suffering will ever make me accept passivity as the appropriate Christian response to white supremacy.

But, like black religion itself, the spirituals are also infused with double meaning, which Harriet Tubman used to liberate more than 300 slaves to freedom. Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, and other prominent black women were empowered by their faith to become passionate freedom fighters.

As King himself realized later, white racism is too deeply ingrained into the social fabric of American life for black suffering to eradicate it.

King challenged the power structures of evil. That was why he was killed. King's suffering, and that of freedom fighters around the world, is redemptive when, like Jesus' cross, it inspires us to resist evil, knowing that suffering is the consequence.

Once more and again, O Lawd, we come to thee, with bowed heads and humble hearts, thankin' thee for watchin' over us last night as we slept and slumbered, and gave us the strength to get up and come to church this momin'. I thank thee that my last night's sleepin' couch was not my coolin' board and my cover was not my windin' sheet. I thank thee, Lawd, because you have been with me from the earliest rockin' of my cradle up to this present moment. You know my heart, and you know the range of our deceitful minds. And if you find anything that shouldn't be, I ask you to pluck it out and cast it into the sea of forgetfulness where it will never rise to harm us in this world.

I do think that it is impossible to do Christian theology with integrity in America without asking the question, What has the gospel to do with the black struggle for liberation?

Christian theology is language about the liberating character of God's presence in Jesus Christ as he calls his people into being for freedom in the world.

God is not indifferent to suffering and not patient with cruelty and falsehood. But God's power and judgment will create justice and order out of chaos.